


a language of its own

by hi_raeth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 12 Days of Valentine's?, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Han appears for like one second, Poe gets five whole seconds, ficlet collection take 2, more like 12 days of cavities because GUESS WHO'S BACK ON HER FLUFFY BULLSHIT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-10-28 09:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17785253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_raeth/pseuds/hi_raeth
Summary: And the heart is hard to translate,it has a language of its own.All the ways Rey and Ben say "I love you", in honor of Valentine's Day.Day 12:an “I love you” before we say bye kind of love.





	1. i noticed

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, title taken from Florence + the Machine's _All This and Heaven Too_.
> 
>  **Day 1** : an “I noticed that you need this so I got it for you” kind of love.

“All right, guys,” Poe announces when they reach his ancient B8, brushing a thin layer of snow off the slightly dented hood before he manually unlocks the car. “This is us. Ben, you’re good to drop Rey off, right?” he asks as he always does, even though Ben’s been her ride for every Friday night dinner in recent memory.

“Yeah, I’m parked just down the street,” Ben says as he steps aside to let Rey through, and she can’t help but notice the way he hangs back while the rest of them trade goodbyes and hugs. Two years and he’s still just the slightest bit out of place among their tiny group of friends, even though they’ve done everything to welcome him since the day Poe introduced everyone to his childhood friend.

“We’re still on for Sunday, right?” Rose asks as the guys get into the car, and Rey gives her a quick smile and an enthusiastic nod as Rose climbs into the backseat. “Okay, see you then. Bye, Rey! Good night, Ben!”

“Good night, Rose. Get home safe, guys,” Ben replies, going so far as to give them a tiny little wave as Rey moves to stand next to him, inching a little closer than necessary to bask in his warmth. The night isn’t particularly cold compared to the rest of winter, but she hasn’t quite gotten around to replacing her threadbare coat just yet and Ben’s practically a space heater with the amount of body heat he’s radiating.

“Will do, buddy,” Poe assures him as he begins to pull away, carefully maneuvering his little car through the snow. “Bye!”

“Bye!” Rey echoes, waving at Rose and Finn until the car makes a turn and disappears from sight. “Shall we?” she asks, turning to Ben with a smile as she slips her hands into her pockets.

His lips twitch, and she watches with no small measure of delight as a matching look blooms on his face, the brightest smile he’s worn all evening. Ben might not be all that comfortable around Finn and Rose just yet, but at least he and Rey are long past the days of tentative half-smiles and awkward moments.

“This way,” Ben tells her as his hand hovers over the small of her back, not quite touching but close enough for her to feel the warmth of his skin. It’s a pleasant sensation, especially in this weather, and for a brief moment Rey entertains the idea of leaning into his touch – or maybe even curling into his side to absorb all that excess heat as they trudge through the snow towards his Silencer.

In the end she settles for pulling her coat a little tighter and wrapping her arms around herself as Ben guides her across the street, relishing in the occasional moments when his fingertips graze her back. A gust of wind hits them just as Ben unlocks the car and holds the door open for her, and Rey is helpless against the little shudder that runs down her spine before she climbs in.

She looks up when Ben fails to close the door behind her, and finds him staring at her lap with a slight frown. “Is something wrong?”

Ben’s eyes snap up to hers. “No, no, just… I, ah, I have something for you.”

Rey watches as he brings a gloved hand up to his hair, combing through it in a tell she recognizes better than her own. “Another present?” she asks, thinking of the self-watering plant spikes he’d given her during their group’s little Secret Santa exchange right before everyone left for the holidays. _So you don’t have to worry about them while you’re at Rose’s place,_ he’d said with a shrug, trying to downplay the thoughtfulness of his gift even as she reached forward to throw her arms around him in thanks. “Ben, Christmas was three weeks ago.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t realize then,” he mumbles, leaving Rey to puzzle over his words as he closes her door and retrieves something from the backseat before sliding into the driver’s seat. “Here,” Ben says quietly, not quite meeting her eyes as he hands her a wrapped box before he starts the car.

She resists the urge to tear the glossy red paper off, carefully peeling tape away as Ben drives them past darkened storefronts and the occasional late-night haunt still filled to the brim with their fellow students. Rey finally opens the box just as they hit a red light, and her breath hitches as she finds a neatly folded hunter green wool coat.

“Ben…” she murmurs, looking up to find him watching her.

“It didn’t snow before Christmas, so I didn’t realize before,” he says, eyes flitting between her and the traffic light. “But I finally noticed last week, when we were walking to the library.”

The library is a twenty-minute walk from the engineering building, and the chill had quickly wormed its way past Rey’s coat and burrowed into her bones that day. She’d buried her shaking hands in her holey pockets and pursed her lips in an effort to still her chattering teeth, but apparently Ben had caught on anyway.

“This is… Ben, this is really nice,” she tells him, brushing a lapel aside to find an instantly recognizable label. “You didn’t have to–”

A warm hand settles over hers, hiding the label from view. “I wanted to,” Ben says firmly, his eyes fixed on hers, and after a beat Rey gives him a slow nod as she laces their fingers together.

“Thank you,” she croaks, _for noticing, for caring,_ struggling to push the words past the sudden lump in her throat, and when he smiles at her Rey finds herself moving quick as lightning to press a kiss to the corner of his lips.

Ben’s smile falters for just a second, and then returns with the brightness of a thousand suns.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” he says, and holds her hand for the rest of the drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this is 998 words so... holy cow, you guys! I actually managed to keep this ficlet-length! Now let’s see how long I can keep that up.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this because I had so much fun writing it and I can’t wait to share the next eleven parts with you! As always, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.
> 
> Psst, you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	2. first person

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 2:** a “you’re the first person I told” kind of love.

“Hey, are you home?”

Rey carefully wedges her phone between her ear and shoulder as she contemplates the take-out menus before her. “Yeah, just about to get dinner. Do you wanna come over?”

“Already on my way,” Ben tells her, not unexpectedly, and Rey sets aside Thai and Indian in favor of milder, more Ben-friendly cuisine. The sight of her big, tough boyfriend tearing up over a bowl of curry will never cease to amuse her, but she’s pretty sure there isn’t enough milk left in her fridge for Ben to quell his burning tongue tonight. “See you in five.”

“See you,” Rey echoes, allowing herself a little smile as she sets her phone down on the counter and puts away the unneeded menus. They’ve been dating for a little over three months now, but the idea of spending time with Ben still fills her with as much giddiness and warmth as it had back when they first started dating in the dead of winter.

Rey hopes it stays that way forever.

She’s just finished wrapping soaking paper towels around two cans of beer when there’s a knock on her door, and Ben’s familiar voice calls out as she sticks the drinks into her mini-fridge.

“Open up, I brought food!”

Is it too soon to tell him she loves him? Probably. Maybe. Rey settles for a quick kiss at the door instead, nuzzling into his neck with a smile before she takes half the food from Ben and closes the door behind them. He’s bought them burgers from Cantina, with fries, onion rings, _and_ mozzarella sticks. If this isn’t romance, Rey doesn’t know what is.

“What’s the special occasion?” she asks jokingly as they begin to unpack the food on her desk-slash-dining-table-slash-kitchen-counter, and it’s only when Ben grows still next to her that Rey realizes this might not be just another Thursday night.

“Ben?”

He readily meets her eye, so at least it’s nothing _bad_ , but the dopey little look on his face is unusual enough that the tiniest bit of concern begins to gnaw at her – until he gives her a blindingly bright grin. “I got the job!”

“You – which – oh my god!” Rey squeals, abandoning her onion rings to launch herself into Ben’s arms. He must still be in shock because he staggers backwards when she does, a first for them, and they end up sitting on the edge of her bed while Rey pulls back to take his face in her hands and beam at him. “Ben, oh my god! Congratulations! I knew you’d get it!”

“I… I mean, I was pretty sure, but this is _First Order_ we’re talking about, so I didn’t want to get my hopes up, you know?” Ben shrugs, as if he’s not about to become the best thing that’s ever happened to that stuffy old consulting firm. “But an hour ago I got the call – from Snoke himself, can you believe it?”

She’s never actually met Ben’s mentor, but the awe in his voice reminds her once again just how big of a deal this is for him. This man is the closest link Ben has to his grandfather, his best shot at connecting with Anakin Skywalker’s legacy and carrying it on, and this position is everything he’s been working towards since he first interned for First Order the summer after high school.

“I’m so happy for you, baby,” Rey tells him as she leans in for another kiss, sliding her hands into his hair when Ben playfully nips at her lower lip. “So happy and _proud_ ,” she murmurs, and that reminds her–

Rey pulls back and feels her lips twitch upwards even as her cheeks begin to hurt from smiling; she can’t help but mirror the unbridled joy on Ben’s face. “And I bet your parents are too! How did they react?”

Ben hadn’t had the best relationship with his parents when they first met – and transferring away from his mother and uncle’s alma mater to join Poe at Coruscant had only made things worse – but they’ve cleared the air since then, enough for him to understand that his parents had tried their best with him and enough for them to make peace with the fact that he’s his own person with his own course to chart in life.

So surely, _surely_ there’s no reason for the way Ben’s smile suddenly falls off his face.

Her fingers freeze, still tangled in his hair. “Ben, baby, I’m sorry, forget I asked–”

“No, no,” Ben hurries to assure her, and to Rey’s confusion he moves forward to rest his head on her shoulder and huff a little laugh against her neck. “It’s not– I just–”

He straightens back up to give her a sheepish little smile. “I forgot to tell them.”

“You _forgot_ to–?” Rey can’t even finish her sentence, the rest of her words swallowed up by her incredulity as her boyfriend shakes with laughter and smiles at her so widely that his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“You’re the first person I told,” he tells her, and some part of Rey, long thought to be dormant or excised, preens at the thought. _First person, first choice, first thought, first first first most important_ – “You’re the first person I _wanted_ to tell,” Ben marvels, voice quiet and filled with all the things they can’t say yet, not after just three months – even though they’ve known each other for two years and it feels longer than that, really, feels like they’ve known each other all their lives and were just waiting to find each other–

“I should probably call them, huh?” he asks after a moment.

Rey nods as she begins to climb out of his lap. “I’ll give you some priva–”

Ben’s hands tighten around her waist, holding her in place. “Stay,” he murmurs, and it feels like he’s asking for so much more.

“Okay,” she agrees easily, happy to say yes to all of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I managed to stay within the word limit for the second day in a row! This has got to be some kind of miracle. (Let's all just ignore the abrupt ending and pretend this story _organically_ turned out as a ficlet.)
> 
> Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on the first chapter. I spotted a lot of familiar faces, and I'm so happy to go on yet another journey with you guys. And to the newcomers, I'm so excited to have you with us! Unfortunately I had to pick between writing or replying to you guys today, but I'll definitely be getting back to everyone ASAP because I appreciate each and every single comment so, so much. <3
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and I hope you liked it. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment, it's always lovely to hear from you guys!
> 
> And hey, you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	3. joke fest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 3:** a nonstop joke fest until I smile again kind of love.

The phone is barely on its third ring when Ben picks up.

“Hey–”

“Can I come over?” Rey asks, skipping the pleasantries. If she tries to sound normal she’ll just fail miserably, and then Ben will notice, and then he’ll ask questions, and she’d much rather answer those questions and ride out the inevitable breakdown in the safety of his home than hers.

Ben doesn’t miss a beat. “Of course you can, sweetheart. I’m almost home. Pizza or Chinese?”

She’s not exactly in the mood for food right now, but telling Ben that would most definitely scare him. “Pizza sounds good,” Rey says instead, figuring Poe will take her half if she doesn’t finish it by the end of the night.

“Pizza it is, then. I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah, I’m leaving now. See you in a bit,” she tells him, and waits for Ben to echo her words before she hangs up and shoulders her overnight bag. The house will be crowded over the weekend, thanks to everyone else having to make the most of their two days off before they get back to their stable, adult jobs, and Rey figures she’s better off hiding at Ben and Poe’s instead of fielding a hundred well-meaning questions about this week’s failed interviews.

Ben’s new place is two stops away by bus, a little farther out from their old campus than the house Rey shares with the girls. The summer sun is well on its way to setting by the time she reaches his building, and warm, welcoming light floods the darkened hallway when Ben opens the door and pulls her into his arms.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asks gently, lips brushing the shell of her ear.

“Not yet,” Rey mumbles into the hollow of his throat, wrapping her arms a little tighter around him when Ben moves to close the door behind them.

He presses a lingering kiss to her temple. “Okay, sweetheart. Come on, I was just about to make a salad.”

Because they’re _adults_ now, college-graduate adults who care about nutrition and getting enough greens and paying their bills and having jobs–

Rey trails after Ben without giving voice to her thoughts, and waits for him to pat an unused spot of kitchen counter before she hops up on it.

“We’ve got the place to ourselves, by the way. Poe’s going straight to Finn’s,” Ben informs her as he starts slicing and dicing.

“Ugh, it’s so _stupid_ ,” Rey mutters, a sentiment shared by all their friends. After dating throughout most of college, Finn and Poe had been set to move in together after graduation last month – until Poe’s grandmother brought up some superstition about them jinxing the relationship, which is how Ben had ended up being roommates with Poe while Finn lives in a cramped studio downtown.

Ben shrugs, leaning into her while he reaches up to grab some glasses in the cabinet above her. “Lots of things are. Like my ears.”

Said ears appear to be burning as Ben directs her attention to them, and Rey cocks her head in question as she meets his eye. “What about them?”

He falters for a second, Rey can see it in his eyes, but then Ben cracks a smile and comes to lean next to her. “They’re huge,” he points out easily. “Kids used to call me Dumbo.”

Rey gasps – in horror, she tells herself, but the nonchalant manner in which Ben said it and the goofy little smile on his face adds a little shock to the moment too.

“That’s so mean!” she cries, well used to defending her boyfriend by now – especially from himself, be it from casual self-deprecation or his darkest _I don’t deserve you_ moments.

“But true,” Ben concedes, nudging her shoulder with his arm. “Makes my giant nose look _almost_ normal in comparison.”

God, it’s the delivery. It’s that stupid goddamn deadpan that rips a laugh-snort out of her, one Rey quickly tries to hide by clapping her hand over her mouth.

But Ben’s grin grows wider as he turns to face her fully, and Rey’s heart gives an odd little _squeeze_ as she realizes what he’s doing.

“Never did learn how to fly with them, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the wind blew me away one day. I mean, I was the scrawniest beanpole ever, with these parachutes growing out of my ears–”

He motions at them, and the mental image superimposed over his completely normal, completely red ears finally coaxes a proper laugh out of her, her first in a week.

“Ben!” Rey gasps, voice breathless as waves and waves of laughter roll through her, taking all of her stress and fear and disappointment with them. “That’s _horrible!_ ”

“Kids usually are,” he shrugs, and then curls one finger under her chin to tip her face up. “There’s that beautiful smile,” Ben murmurs, ears still red as a tomato, and Rey can’t help but throw her arms around him and pull him down for a kiss.

“For the record,” she mumbles against his lips, “I love your ears.”

And the rest of him, but five months still feels just a little too early for that.

“Good to know,” Ben says, pressing one last kiss to her lips as the doorbell rings. “That’s probably pizza. Ready for dinner?”

Rey watches him walk towards the front door as she hops down from the counter and moves the salad over to his tiny dining-slash-coffee table. In the morning she’ll tell him what today was all about, even though he probably already knows, and then she’ll let him hold her close and tell her that everything’s going to be okay.

But for now, all she wants is to spend a nice evening with her boyfriend, who was willing to make fun of one of his greatest insecurities just to make her laugh and feel normal again.

“Yeah,” Rey says, tracing the smile on her lips with a single fingertip. “Yeah, I could eat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m... not the best at jokes, unfortunately. But I tried, you guys! I really, really did.
> 
> Just to clarify: these ficlets are all set in the same ‘verse/continuity. Coming up with and writing in a different world every day really burned me out last time, so I’m trying something different with this collection to see how it’ll work out.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. As always, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. See you guys tomorrow!
> 
> PS - you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	4. did you eat?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 4:** a “baby did you eat today?” kind of love.

> **Ben ❤️❤️❤️** :  
>  Have a good first day at work, sweetheart. I know you’ll do great.
> 
> **Rey:  
>  **god i hope so  
>  i’m so nervous i couldn’t even eat this morning  
>  clocking in now WISH ME LUCK

Rey sets her phone aside as she finally reaches Corellia Cars, taking one last deep breath to steel herself before she walks into the familiar shop. It’s somehow more intimidating now that she’s here as a permanent employee rather than the occasional extra set of hands, but Rey isn’t given any time to process that before Han spots her and waves her in.

“Right on time,” he mutters, but she’s grown used to his gruff manner by now. Besides, the little grin he flashes her as he presents her with her very own workstation more than makes up for it, and the customized Starkiller he points out as her first assignment  _definitely_ makes up for it.

“Is that–?”

Han chuckles at the sight of her dropped jaw. “Yeah, figured it’d make a nice first day of work surprise. Have at her, kid,” he says with a clap on her shoulder, and then promptly leaves her unsupervised with a one-of-a-kind car that’s probably worth more than she’ll ever make in her life.

Equal measures of excitement and terror course through Rey’s veins as she approaches the car, sparing the clipboard in her hand the occasional glance as she admires the sleek black Starkiller from every possible angle before she carefully,  _carefully_ pops the hood.

And then she’s off to the races, all terror and caution forgotten as Rey loses herself in sheer childlike wonder and curiosity while she pokes and prods at the bowels of a mechanical miracle the likes of which she can only dream of someday designing. Chewie has to pull her out from under the car two hours later, grumbling something about lunchtime and the importance of breaks.

“Almost done, I swear,” Rey assures him, tuning out the sounds of everyone else breaking for lunch while she puts the finishing touches on her masterpiece and double-checks her work against the checklist on the clipboard. Her stomach chooses that exact moment to remind her that it’s noon, and Rey’s just about to look around and see if anyone’s left to bug for food suggestions when her abandoned phone buzzes on her workstation, alerting her to several messages sent over the last two hours.

> **Ben ❤️❤️❤️:  
>  **Rey, breathe.  
>  You know my dad loves you.  
>  You’re the kid he’s always wished for.  
>  How’s it going?  
>  Have you eaten anything yet?
> 
> **Rey:  
>  **sorry!!  
>  your dad let me work on a starkiller  
>  A STARKILLER BEN CAN YOU BELIEVE IT  
>  and i lost track of time  
>  haven’t eaten yet, not sure where to go
> 
> **Ben ❤️❤️❤️:  
>  **You can tell me all about it over lunch.  
>  Meet me at the park?

The park is a short five-minute walk for her, but she’s pretty sure it’s at least a fifteen-minute drive for him. Spurred on by the promise of food and Ben, Rey makes a quick stop in the bathroom to freshen up and drapes her overalls on her chair before clocking out for lunch.

She spots Ben as soon as she sets foot into the park, her poor boyfriend roasting under the late June sun in his black suit.

“Hey, you,” Rey says, bending down to give him a quick kiss before she settles next to him on the bench. “This is a surprise.”

“I thought it’d be nice to have lunch together,” Ben shrugs as he turns to his side and pulls out a couple of glass containers and two bottles of water. “Bolognese,” he informs her, handing over one of the two containers before he starts setting out cutlery and paper napkins.

Rey eyes the containers and the familiar fork in her hand for a moment before it clicks. “Babe, did you make this?” she asks, unable to contain her smile at the thought of him cooking for her. “ _When_? How did you even find the time to–?”

“I made it last night,” Ben tells her as he motions for her to dig in. “And there’s a kitchenette in the office, so it was easy to heat everything up–”

“ _Ben,”_  Rey interrupts him with a moan that would probably be considered indecent by the parents and nannies standing just out of earshot. “This is  _amazing_.”

His slight smile widens into a grin then, and Rey crinkles her nose at him as he grabs a napkin and dabs at a spot of sauce on the corner of her mouth. “If you like it, there’s a lot more at home. You can take some with you for the rest of the week. I made pesto too, and garlic bread.”

He’s so  _casual_ about it that her heart aches with fondness; as if he didn’t deliberately make more than enough so that she won’t have to worry about food this week, as if he didn’t stay up late last night to cook for her when she knows he usually goes to sleep early on Sundays to prepare for the week ahead.

 _I never dreamed anyone would –_ could _– care for me the way you do,_ Rey thinks, but that’s too heavy for a sunny lunch date in a park. “I know they say food is the way to a woman’s heart and all, but you do realize you don’t have to keep feeding me, right? I’m already yours,” she says instead, as if that’s any lighter than almost anything else she could’ve admitted to.

Ben ducks down and kisses her, sauce-stained lips and all. “I  _like_ feeding you,” he murmurs, huffing a tiny laugh against her lips.  _I like taking care of you,_ Rey knows he means.  _Let me, please,_ he asks with a little nudge of his nose against hers, and the summer heat has nothing to do with the way Rey melts into his arms.

After all, she’s never been one to turn down free food – especially when it’s made with love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bit... _meh_ about this one, but I figure they can't all be winners. At least they're still being disgustingly cute, right?
> 
> Thank you all so much for the lovely comments so far, and please don't hesitate to keep them coming! Thanks for reading, and I'll see you tomorrow!
> 
> PS - you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	5. goofy smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 5:** a goofy smile when I walk in the room kind of love.

“So!” Poe says as soon as everyone else has disappeared into the kitchen, moving over from the armchair to plop himself down next to Ben on the couch. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Ben asks, frowning at the expectant look on Poe’s face tempered by a touch of genuine concern. “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”

This is why he would’ve preferred being on clean-up duty with Rey. But she’d insisted that she and the others handle the dishes since he and Poe had cooked (read: Ben cooked, Poe ‘supervised), so now he’s stuck with his annoyingly perceptive roommate and a topic he isn’t quite comfortable talking about just yet.

Poe crosses his arms and raises a single brow, the cocky bastard; he _knows_ it drives Ben crazy that he never figured out how to do that. “Come on, Solo. I was there the day you were born. You can’t hide anything from me.”

“You sat in the waiting room for ten minutes before your dad came and picked you up–” Ben tries to remind him, knowing it’s a lost cause even as he speaks.

“I was there when they brought you into the world and smacked that pale little baby butt of yours,” Poe _falsely_ claims, but they’ve been through this at least a hundred times and by this point Ben’s learned to just let him be. “So don’t think you can lie to me. Come on, out with it.”

“Poe, seriously, there’s nothing–”

“Is it work? It’s work, isn’t it?” He unbearably confident with his guess, and in the privacy of his mind Ben begrudgingly applauds his friend’s perceptiveness.

But he really, really doesn’t want to talk about this – especially not with Poe, or any of the others, or anyone who isn’t Rey, actually.

“It’s nothing, Poe. Seriously, drop it.”

“Look, up until a year ago, I would’ve bought that,” Poe tells him. “But this new Ben? New Ben doesn’t let just _nothing_ get him down for a whole week, especially not with his own personal Rey of sunshine around.”

He can’t help the way his lips twitch with a smile at both the nickname and the reminder that she’s a constant in his life now, and almost as if summoned Rey walks into the living room then, shooting them a smile as she grabs her phone from the coffee table. “We need background music,” she explains, disappearing back into the kitchen along with the opening strains of some overplayed track.

“Wow,” Poe whistles a moment later, forcing him to tear his eyes away from where he can glimpse Rey’s sleeve poking out from the covered half of the kitchen. “You’re a goner, Solo,” he says, shaking his head with a shit-eating grin firmly plastered on his face.

Rey steps into view, pointing Rose to the right cabinet for the ice-cream bowls as if it’s her kitchen, as if this is her home, and Ben automatically gives in to the urge to smile as all his stress melts away in just a split-second. “Yeah,” he agrees easily, still grinning like a fool. “Yeah, I am.”

Poe startles him with a hard clap on his shoulder. “Good! Because I’ve been thinking–”

“Careful there, Dameron.”

“Very funny, Baby Boy Solo,” Poe huffs, sparing him a halfhearted eye-roll. “Look, Finn and I realized it’s kinda ridiculous that we let my grandmother scare us out of living together. I mean, I love her and all, but you know she’s the most superstitious person on the planet.”

Ben’s spent enough time around Poe’s abuela to know he isn’t exaggerating at all. “Yeah, I was surprised you let her get to you, honestly. Feels like you should know better by now.”

Poe shrugs. “You live and you learn. Anyway, listen: Finn’s been renting a sublet on a monthly basis, but it’s not really working out for him. And now that Holdo’s moving the company to the new office space downtown, my commute’s about to get unbearable. So we were thinking…”

“Are you abandoning me, Dameron?” Ben asks only half-jokingly, already running calculations on the cost of keeping the apartment on his own versus the emotional and mental cost of getting a roommate. And there’s Rey to consider; she’s friendly on the surface but Ben knows it takes her a while to warm up to strangers, and he wouldn’t want her to be uncomfortable in her own space–

“Don’t think of it as me abandoning you,” Poe suggests. “Think of it as me clearing out so that you and Rey can finally turn this place into your love nest.”

Upon catching sight of his blank look, Poe lets out a long-suffering sigh and drags a hand down his face. “Ask her to move in with you, Ben.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Rey could live here. Rey could live here with _him_ – her toothbrush next to his every morning, her arms wrapped around him every night, her life and his coming together to form two halves of a whole. The kitchen could actually be _her_ kitchen, and he could clear out half the closet for her – more than that, if she needs it, or they could use the second bedroom for storage once Poe moves out and leaves them all to themselves…

“Hey! Earth to Solo!”

He’s yanked out of his daydreams and greeted by the sight of Poe’s snapping fingers right in front of his eyes. “Right, sorry.”

“I could practically see that domestic bliss montage play out in your head, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, buddy. You do realize you need to ask Rey first, right?” Poe points out.

Right. That.

“Ask me what?”

For the first time in months, Rey has somehow entered a room without his notice. Ben’s ears ring with white noise as she comes closer and perches next to him on the edge of the couch, and Poe gives him a pointed look before he turns his attention to the rest of their friends to give him some privacy.

“Um,” Ben mumbles as he turns to find Rey beaming at him for no reason other than she’s his own personal sun, the very center of his orbit, the star his whole damn existence revolves around–

God, he really can’t imagine life without her. And why should he, when at every turn Rey has shown him that she wants this just as much as he does, admitted to him that she likes to think about their future too?

That future has to start somewhere, right?

“Rey,” he says, clears his throat and tries again when it comes out as barely a whisper. His hands find hers, and somehow she knows to give them a squeeze and reassure him with a single nod of her head, her smile remaining in place all the while.

And if Rey, Rey who was never sure where her next meal would come from, Rey who was never sure what the next day would bring or if there would even _be_ a next day–

If Rey can be sure about anything, then he can be sure about them.

“Sweetheart, how would you feel about moving in with me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it was nice while it lasted but as of today, I've officially blown past the word limit. And this is _after_ two rounds of editing and some serious trimming.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry for the fact that this is more Ben & Poe than Ben/Rey. We were long overdue for some Ben POV and I was really looking forward to delving into his mind and seeing where he's at emotionally compared to Rey, but this happened instead. I really, really hope you guys are fans of this friendship too, because otherwise this was probably a pain to read. Sorry!
> 
> Thank you for reading as always, and I hope you enjoyed at least some of it. Please feel free to leave a comment, and see you tomorrow!
> 
> And hey, you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	6. before you leave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 6:** an “I gotta kiss you before you leave” kind of love.

****

Rey moves in on the first Sunday of August.

The day itself goes off without a hitch; she’s never been one to have a ton of material possessions, and Ben’s been making space for her ever since she gave him her final answer two weeks ago. It takes less than two hours for her to unpack and put away her measly five boxes of belongings, and after that she and Ben just take a minute to admire the sight of her bargain bin work shirts hung up next to his suits, her plants lining _their_ windowsills, and her one box of books joining his shelves.

“I like it,” Ben assures her when Rey worries that her plants are taking up too much space, when she points out how out of place her worn paperbacks look next to his clothbound hardcovers. “It’s perfect, Rey. This is perfect.”

After they go grocery shopping for _their_ household, and they make dinner in _their_ kitchen, and at the end of the day Rey climbs into _their_ bed and falls asleep in Ben’s arms feeling more at home than ever before.

Maybe Ben feels that way too, because that’s the only reason she can think of for both of them somehow sleeping through two alarms and the sunrise the next morning.

“Shit,” Rey gasps when she finally peels back one heavy eyelid to get a look at the small clock on Ben’s nightstand. “Shit, shit, shit!” She bolts upright immediately, flinging Ben’s arms off her as she blinks away the last lingering bits of sleep. “Ben, wake up! We’re late!”

“It’s late,” he mumbles in agreement, only to try and pull her back down without opening his eyes. “Get some sleep, sweetheart.”

Rey bats his hands away and shakes him awake. “We got _too_ much sleep, babe. Come on, you’re gonna be late for work.”

That works like a charm. “Work?” Ben asks sharply, and almost pushes her off the bed when he suddenly shoots up and nearly hits his head against the headboard as he turns to look at the time. “Fuck. _Fuck_!” He’s full-on panicking now, stumbling out of bed and ripping off his clothes without so much as another word as he blindly makes his way towards the bathroom. It’s only once he’s turned on the lights and stepped onto the cold tiled floor that he’s properly yanked back into reality.

“Wait,” he says, poking his head out of the bathroom with a sheepish little look. “Did you want to go first?”

“It’s okay.” Rey slips past him and into the shower to grab her toiletries. “You go first, I’ll use the other bathroom. Just let me grab my stuff.”

He curls one hand around her forearm before she leaves. “You sure? I don’t mind–”

“Go, Ben,” she tells him, nudging him with her hip. “Your hair takes longer than mine. Hurry up.”

“Only because you put it up while it’s still dripping wet,” Ben points out, softening his words with a quick kiss to her temple before he gets into the shower and Rey makes her way to Poe’s old bathroom. As predicted, Ben’s still in their bathroom by the time she’s done with her shower _and_ the bowl of cereal she wolves down while her hair sits in a towel, and Rey takes a moment to set out breakfast for him before she gets dressed. It’s just a bowl and a spoon left on the counter along with some cereal, but she’s pretty sure even Ben would have done the same given the time constraint they’re working with.

He’s half-dressed by the time she gets to their room, scooping up his pants and jacket to take with him when Rey mentions breakfast.

“This is not how your first morning here was supposed to go,” Ben tells her apologetically when she shows up in the kitchen a few minutes later, dressed and ready for work. “I was going to make you a proper breakfast and everything.”

Rey shakes her head at him with a smile as she gathers up her things. “It’s hardly my first morning here, Ben,” she points out in an effort to cheer him up; his day is off to a bad enough start as it is, now that he’s going to get to work just in time rather than Snoke’s preferred thirty minutes early. “And you _did_ make me breakfast when it was. Now come on, we can deal with the dishes when we get home.”

That coaxes a smile out of him. “I like the sound of that,” Ben says as they put on their shoes and do a final check for phones, keys, and wallets. “You calling this place home,” he clarifies when Rey turns to him with a questioning look.

“Feels like it,” Rey shrugs, taking one last look at the place before Ben closes the door behind them and guides her to the elevator. “Are you going to be okay today?” she asks quietly, reluctant to bring it up and ruin their brief moment of peace but needing to know.

Ben knows exactly what she’s talking about. “He won’t be happy, but I doubt he’ll say anything about it,” he assures her as they step out into the lobby. The building is nice enough for one and new enough for underground parking, which Ben prefers to access from the stairs on the other end of the lobby rather than the elevator. He takes the opportunity to walk her to the door while he’s at it, and Rey bites back the urge to tell him that he doesn’t need to, that he should be sprinting to his car and getting to work as soon as possible. If his rotting corpse of a boss is going to be pissed anyway, she might as well let Ben take his time.

“Bye, baby,” she tells him when they reach the front door, reaching up to give him a kiss on the cheek as she lets go of his hand. “I’ll see you tonight–” But Ben pulls her in by her waist before she can begin to walk away, and kisses her slow and soft in full view of the few other tenants milling about the lobby at this hour.

They’re both smiling when he finally lets go of her, so at least there’s that. “What was that for?” Rey asks, masking her breathlessness with a little laugh as she smooths down his lapels before she steps back.

“Just wanted to kiss you goodbye,” Ben shrugs, still wearing a small grin as he tucks a flyaway behind her ear. “Have a good day at work, sweetheart.”

Her heart overflows with a sudden rush of affection for him, and Rey realizes… she could say it now. Eight months isn’t too soon. The first morning of living together isn’t too soon. Right after he’s kissed her goodbye and wished her a good day at work like something out of a domestic fantasy isn’t at all too soon.

But the words get stuck in her throat as she looks at him, all bright eyes and boyish grin while he steps away from her, and Rey has no idea what to do because she’s always just assumed they’d tumble past her lips as soon as she’s ready, as soon as the time is right.

Instead there’s a pregnant pause between them, one she scrambles to fill before it turns into dead air. “You too, babe,” Rey says, and stretches up on her tiptoes to give him one last peck before she turns on her heel and hurries out of the building.

She’ll worry about this some other time, when she isn’t flat out sprinting to catch the bus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is nearly three hundred words over the limit, mainly because I wanted to address the matter of Snoke being Ben’s boss as well as what appears to be everyone’s most pressing question: _why haven’t they said "I love you" yet???_
> 
> We’ve only got six more days to go, friends, so worry not: everything will be resolved soon. And it’ll all work out, I promise. So in the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy the fluff!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it! As always, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment; hearing from you guys really does make my day. <3
> 
> And hey, you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	7. just checking in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 7:** a “just checking in” kind of love.

> **Ben ❤️❤️❤️:**  
>  Canto Bight reps are insisting on an emergency meeting tonight.  
>  Don’t wait up for me.
> 
> **Rey:**  
>  ugh not those fuckwads again  
>  okay baby  
>  don’t forget to eat something please  
>  good night <3
> 
> **Ben ❤️❤️❤️:**  
>  Probably late by an hour or two tonight.  
>  Snoke wants to fine-tune my proposal before we meet with Lando tomorrow.  
>  Go ahead and have dinner without me.
> 
> **Rey:**  
>  ben you’ve been working on that proposal for two months  
>  there’s nothing left to fix  
>  are you almost done?  
>  i’m gonna go ahead and sleep now  
>  let me know when you get home  
>  ps left some beef and broccoli in the fridge for you
> 
> **Ben ❤️❤️❤️:  
>  **Fucking Hux is asking me to stay back today to help him with the Stormtrooper pitch.

Rey stares at Ben’s message for all of ten seconds before she hits the call button. It rings for a while, and she pictures Ben excusing himself from another endless conversation and going off in search of some privacy while she waits for him to pick up.

“Rey?”

She misses his voice. It’s ridiculous because they've been living together for a month now and his is usually the first voice she hears in the morning, but lately she’s been waking up to an empty bed more often than not, lucky to catch even a glimpse of Ben before he rushes out the door in the mornings.

“You’ve worked late all week,” Rey hears herself saying in lieu of a greeting. It’s not an accusation, but she winces at it nonetheless, wishing she had broached the subject in a more tactful way. “Besides,” she adds, trying to soften the blow, “Hux has been a total arsehole to you since forever. Tell him to go fuck himself.”

Ben laughs, and she’s struck by the fact that she can’t remember the last time she’d heard his quiet chuckle. “I wish I could, sweetheart. But,” he sighs, and on the other end of the line Rey’s tempted to do the same; nothing good ever comes after a _but_. “You know how he is. He’d probably just tattle on me like the six-year-old he actually is, and then I’d have to deal with an hour-long lecture about the importance of teamwork or whatever the fuck from Snoke.”

It’s getting harder and harder to remind herself that Ben chose this, _wants_ this, when even he sounds like he hates his job ninety percent of the time.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” Ben adds before she can go on yet another tirade against his boss. “I know I’ve been away a lot. I’ll be home on time tomorrow, I promise. We can even go out for dinner, if you want.”

“That’d be nice,” Rey agrees with a sigh, knowing even as she does that there’s a non-zero chance of something coming up last minute and keeping Ben from their dinner date tomorrow. She flips through her clipboard as Ben rattles off a list of possible restaurants they could check out tomorrow, noting that she’s only got one car left before she can clock out and head home to their empty apartment.

“Rey? Rey, are you there?”

“Hmm? Yeah, sorry,” she tells him, pushing the clipboard aside. “Got distracted.”

“I should let you get back to work,” Ben says, and the hint of reluctance in his voice is enough to make her smile. “Wait, you’re the one who called me. Was there something you wanted?”

She can’t fault him for asking, not when they stopped calling just for the sake of calling a long time ago. Their calls these days are rushed and purposeful, more often than not just a quick question or two to get confirmation on their weekend plans or whether they need something from the store. “No, I… I just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all.”

A sharp intake of breath crackles over the line, and Rey can see his wince clear as day in her mind. “God, I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry, this week’s just been… Fuck, when was the last time we even had a meal together?”

“Dinner on Sunday,” Rey says before she can think better of it, and immediately regrets it in the guilty silence that follows. “No, wait, there was breakfast on Tuesday–” except that barely counted, because Ben had finished his last bit of toast just as Rey padded into the kitchen, and by the time she’d retrieved a bowl and spoon he’d already brushed a kiss goodbye across her forehead and rushed out the door.

“Fuck it,” Ben mutters a beat later. “Fuck it all. I’ll tell Hux I’ve already made plans tonight. If he’s so much better than me I’m sure he can handle a basic pitch on his own, anyway.”

“Baby, I miss you and all but I don’t want you to get into trouble–”

Ben cuts off her protests. “I miss you too, Rey. Which is fucking ridiculous, because we _live_ together. I’m coming home for dinner tonight, I promise.”

He’s going to get into trouble for this. He is _definitely_ going to get into trouble for this, but god if the determination in his voice doesn’t make her want to cry. “I lo-”

“Shit, someone’s coming,” Ben hisses just as she finds her voice, drowning her out with his panic. “I’ve gotta go now, sweetheart. I’ll see you at home, okay? Bye.”

Rey stares at her phone for the longest time after Ben hangs up.

She’d almost said it – just like that, over the phone, without a moment’s pause or consideration or planning. In that moment it’d just felt _right_ , natural even.

 _That_ would’ve come to a screeching halt had the words spilled past her lips only to be met by silence. Rey knows Ben would never do that to her, _knows_ he probably loves her too, but…

But maybe she should wait a little while longer, just to be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends! First of all, sorry for the sudden break in updates. The flu hit me pretty hard a few days ago, and juggling that with work _and_ writing just proved to be a little too much. To make up for it, I'm planning (hoping) to update multiple times throughout the next two days in order to wrap this up by the end of the week.
> 
> Second of all, this chapter went a little off the rails. Sorry about that too; I thought I knew where it was headed when I sat down to write it, but Rey and Ben had other ideas. But hey, prompts are ultimately just gentle, guiding hands leading us to the final product, right? Even when said product ends up having nothing at all to do with the prompt...
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. And please don't hesitate to leave a comment, even if it's just going to be a rant about them not saying _it_ yet.
> 
> And hey, you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	8. rub my back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 8:** a rub my back after work kind of love.

Ben tries not to take calls at his desk.

Snoke has done the best he can, assigning Ben to a desk at the far end of the open-plan office to give him as much privacy as possible, but out of sight doesn’t mean out of earshot, and he’d rather not risk his colleagues eavesdropping on him. Competitive environments are nothing new to him, but this workplace takes that a whole new level – not that surprising, given who his coworkers are and what they used to do before deciding to monetize their connections. _Welcome to the cutthroat world of lobbying,_ Gwen Phasma had deadpanned on his first day, and it was only his nerves that had kept him from laughing at what he’d so confidently assumed to be a joke.

And then Mitaka had helpfully caught him up on all the office drama, including the fact that they’ve lost four people in the last three months due to backstabbing and blackmail, and Ben hasn’t so much as smiled at a colleague since.

So yes, Ben tries not to take calls at his desk. But when his phone starts buzzing insistently and the word _Dad_ lights up his screen, he finds himself reaching out on instinct alone. Because Han never calls, especially not when he knows Ben is at work, which can only mean…

_Rey._

“Dad?”

“Oh, good,” Han mumbles, sounding a little taken aback. “You actually answered your phone. Good.”

The lack of urgency in his father’s voice banishes the worst of his fears, but Ben remains on guard. “I thought it might be an emergency–”

“I wouldn’t call it an _emergency_ , but–”

Ben inhales sharply. “What happened? Is she okay? Where is she?”

“Slow down there, lover boy!” Han tells him with a gruff bark of laughter. “She’s fine, just slipped on some oil and landed pretty hard on her shoulder. Chewie and I tried to take her to the hospital, but you know how she is. Even wanted to go right back to work, but I put my foot down and made her go home early.”

“Thank you,” Ben sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tries to calm down. A fall, his father said, and thank god she didn’t land on her head because there’s no way Rey would have allowed herself to be admitted for observation, not even at the risk of being concussed.

His father grunts in response, the only non-sarcastic way he has of saying _you’re welcome_. “Just did what any decent boss would do. Anyway, she’s probably going to try to keep this from you, so I thought I’d go ahead and let you know.”

It’s… surprisingly thoughtful of him, especially since Han and Rey are both card-carrying members of the _walk it off_ club when it comes to injuries. “Thanks, dad. Seriously… thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Han mumbles, and he can almost see his father uncomfortably shrugging his thanks off with a dismissive wave. “Now go check on your girlfriend, will ya? Can’t have my best mechanic working with a bum shoulder.”

Out of gratitude, Ben lets the _best mechanic_ comment slide and even considers not telling Rey about it. He powers down his computer as he trades goodbyes with Han, and makes a stop at the sole occupied desk within twenty feet of him on his way out.

“Hey, Mitaka, if anyone asks where I went tell them I had a medical emergency, will you?”

Snoke’s going to fucking skin him for this, he knows, but that’s for future Ben to deal with. Besides, he’s already on thin ice with his boss as it is for cutting back on his overtime these past three weeks, so it’s not like things can get any worse.

He hurries off before Mitaka can even form a reply, walking towards the elevators as quickly as he can without breaking into a flat-out run. In the car he thinks of calling Rey, but if she knows he’s coming she’ll just do everything in her power to act okay.

Traffic starts to build up behind him, but Ben manages to get ahead of it and reach home in less than thirty minutes. He races up the stairs, too keyed up to wait for the elevator, and unlocks the door as quietly as possible before he steps in and finds Rey on the couch, poking her shoulder with a frown on her face and an icepack in her other hand.

“Ben! Why are you–” One look at the concern on his face and a scowl appears on her face. “Han told you, didn’t he?”

“ _You_ should’ve told me,” Ben says, unable to keep from scolding her as he drops his messenger bag by the door and takes quick, long strides over to the couch. “Here, let me see.”

He shoots Rey a sharp look when she looks as if she might protest, and carefully tugs her shirt down her arm when she presents her shoulder to him. “No bruising,” Ben murmurs as he traces the area with his fingertips.

“Because it’s _nothing_ ,” Rey huffs, shrugging her shirt back up. “You didn’t need to come home. Snoke’s not going to be happy–”

Ben gets up from the couch. “Screw Snoke,” he says dismissively as he heads into their bedroom to retrieve the bottle of lavender body oil Rey keeps on her nightstand. She likes rubbing it into her arms before bed, the kind of small luxury that had been unimaginable in her previous life and brings her so much joy now, and the scent soothes them both; more than once he’s woken up from an unsettling dream only to press his nose to her wrist and let himself be lulled back to sleep.

“Seriously, babe, it’s nothing to be worried about,” Rey insists as he returns with the oil, and the way she bites down on her lip when she spots the dark bottle in his hand is all he needs to spur him into action. If she truly weren’t in pain, she would’ve turned down his offer before he could even make it.

Instead she remains silent as Ben helps her out of her shirt, carefully maneuvering around her shoulder so that she doesn’t have to move it too much, and turns to present her back to him without prompting.

She hisses a bit when he first applies pressure, but the tension soon flows out of her shoulders once her muscles are warm and loose. Ben works in silence, stopping only to place a kiss on her temple when Rey leans back and melts into him with a sigh.

“Thank you,” she whispers, lips brushing against the curve of his shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” Ben assures her as his hands travel further down her back. As sore as he is from sitting at a desk all day, he can only imagine the kind of strain her work puts on her muscles; might as well help her deal with that while he’s at it.

“Ben,” Rey says sharply, sitting up straight and turning to look at him over her shoulder. “You left work early and pissed off your boss just to come home and give me a back rub. That’s not nothing.”

But it is to him. It’s such a small thing compared to everything else he would do for her, to all the things he wants to give her. One hand settles on her waist and gently turns her around to face him. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

Rey stares at him for a moment before she leans in to touch her forehead to his. “I’m beginning to see that,” she mumbles against his lips.

 _Are you_? Ben wonders. Is she really beginning to see just how ridiculously head over heels, would-die-for-you in love he is? She pulls back to smile at him, and there’s too much serenity in her eyes for her to be in possession of that knowledge.

What he feels for her… it would send her running for the hills. Hell, some days it makes _him_ want to run for the hills. It’s all too much, too soon – Rey doesn’t even want to talk about the future yet, and here he is, ready to marry her right this second if she’d allow him the privilege.

Too much. Too soon.

“Turn back around,” Ben tells her after a quick peck. “I’m not done yet.”

“You’re too good to me,” Rey sighs happily as she settles back into her earlier position.

 _You’re too good_ for _me,_ he thinks, and wonders if she’ll ever stop feeling like a dream that’s too good to be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second update of the day! I'm hoping to post Day 9 later tonight, but that one's gonna be a bit heavy to write so we'll see how it goes. 
> 
> Some (okay, most) of you have expressed concern for the remaining ficlets, but rest assured that this is first and foremost a fluffy love story so the HEA is guaranteed. There will be ups and downs, since this follows the first year of their relationship _and_ the first few months of their lives post-college as they try to figure things out, but they'll figure it all out together and come out stronger for it, I promise. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and I hope you liked it! And please don't hesitate to comment, because those give me something to smile about while I'm stuck in bed coughing my lungs up.
> 
> And hey, you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	9. till we've made up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 9:** a “we’re not going to bed til we’ve made up” kind of love.

It’s nearly ten by the time he gets home, the latest he’s arrived in weeks.

The plan is to get a drink, brood in the darkness of their living room for a bit, and then slip into bed and hold Rey until the voices in his head shut up and let him go to sleep. But then Ben steps into their apartment to find a single light on in the living room and Rey curled up in their armchair, and his already shitty day takes a turn for the worse.

“Ben?” Rey calls through a yawn, rubbing at sleep-crusted eyes before she stretches out her arms and turns to him. “You’re home. Where were you?”

“Work,” he tells her, leaving it at that as he sets his things down on the kitchen counter and yanks off his tie. “Sorry I didn’t warn you, it was kinda last minute.”

So last minute that he’d already had one foot in the elevator before one of Snoke’s panicked-looking assistants pulled him back and informed him their boss was demanding to see him.

Rey watches him as he slumps down into the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest. “S’okay,” she mumbles, still half-asleep. “I figured something must’ve come up. Everything go okay?”

No. No, everything most certainly did _not_ go okay, but now’s not a good time to talk about it, not when he’s still seething under a mask of composure that he can barely hold on to. “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Ben says, knowing Rey would see through any lie he tries to feed her. Even now a frown is slowly forming on her face as she observes him, and after a while she comes to sit next to him on the couch and tentatively takes his shaking hands in hers.

They’re cold. They’re always cold, but even more so now as the wind grows sharp with that early October chill. She should be in bed, buried under three blankets and warming her icy fingers on his bare skin. Instead she’d been sleeping in their tiny armchair for who knows how long while he was busy getting chewed out by Snoke, and all because–

 _I saw your grandfather in you the first time we met, and like a fool I assumed it was his greatness I recognized in your eyes. Now I see it was his_ weakness _, the same desperate heart that beats in you and turns you into a slave for the first set of pretty eyes willing to spread her legs for you–_

All because he only stays an extra half hour each day instead of the unspoken requirement of two hours. All because he chooses to have breakfast with Rey in the mornings instead of going in extra early. All because he skipped out on two hours of work last week to check on her–

 _She calls and you go running like a_ dog _. If you’re going to be a mutt, it would serve you well to at least pick the right master, Ben Solo._

Rey pulls him out of his head by wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his chest. “Was it Snoke?” she asks quietly. And he knows she means well, knows she’s worried, but–

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Ben mutters, and shrugs off her arms so that he can go wash this shitty day off and pretend it didn’t happen. Pretend he hasn’t made a huge mistake, pretend his parents weren’t right to warn him about Snoke, pretend he doesn’t see the pity in Rey’s eyes when he comes back from work looking like a kicked puppy.

God, he really _is_ just a lost mutt, running from one master to another in search of validation and acceptance and love.

He bites back a groan when Rey follows him into the shower and lingers by the door, watching as his clothes form a puddle on the ground. All he needs is two minutes, just two minutes to breathe and bury it all deep down before it can spill over–

“Ben, I know it’s none of my business but…”

Two minutes. All he needed was two minutes. “You’re right,” Ben snaps as he steps under the scalding hot spray. “It _is_ none of your business, Rey. So will you please _stop_ , for just one second, acting like my fucking mom just waiting to say _I told you so_?”

He didn’t mean to raise his voice. He has never, ever meant to raise his voice at Rey, never wants her to feel afraid of him the way he knows he sometimes scares others, the way she grew up fearing others… but frankly Ben’s surprised he’s managed to go this long without fucking up.

His voice sounds painfully loud bouncing off the tiled walls of their bathroom, and Rey’s sharp little gasp is just as deafening. Ben feels fucking _winded_ when he hears it, like the weight of his mistake has just slammed into him with all the force of a wrecking ball. “Rey, no,” he sighs, stepping out of the shower to reach for her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean–”

“ _Don’t_ ,” she warns him, voice small and shaky as she steps out of reach. She _flinched_ , he realizes, and god if that doesn’t make him feel like a piece of shit–

“I… I’m going for a walk,” Rey announces, still quiet and shaken and _fuck_ , the one glimpse he gets of her before she slams the bathroom door shut will be seared onto the back of his eyelids forever, her eyes shiny with tears and her lips trembling with shock.

He doesn’t bother with a towel, only stops to turn the water off before he nearly rips the door off its hinges to follow after her, but he runs into the living room just in time for her to shut the front door in his face.

It’s ten on a Friday night. The neighborhood is still bustling with the younger crowd out and about, and the streets are well-lit and not at all deserted. Besides, if he knows Rey she’s probably headed for the little bar around the corner managed by her friend Jessika, who’s been known to comp her the occasional drink.

She’s safe. As much as he wants to run after her, as much as it hurts him to think of her handling this on her own… Rey’s safe and sound and probably needs as much space as he does right now.

So Ben gets back into the shower and goes through the motions, and twenty minutes later he pours himself a shot of whiskey from the bottle his father had given him and Poe as a housewarming gift and brings it with him to the living room, where he finally gets to sit and brood in the darkness.

Tonight was… tonight was a fucking disaster, and it’s one he never, ever wants to repeat in his life. He’ll take up meditation. Google coping techniques. Fuck, he’ll even look into therapy if that’s what it takes for him to manage the stress of his work without taking it out on Rey. She doesn’t deserve this; she doesn’t deserve any of his shit, but _especially_ this. Especially when she was the only one who was truly happy for him when he got his dream job, the only one genuinely rooting for his success, the only one who would never say or even think _I told you so_.

Half an hour passes. He’s tempted to get up and pour himself another shot – hell, he’s tempted to take the whole bottle with him – but Rey doesn’t deserve to deal with his drunk ass either. So he puts both glass and bottle away, and then it’s his turn to curl up on the couch and wait for her to come home.

Last call at Jessika’s is two on Fridays – well, Saturdays – and Ben sets an alarm for 2:15, fully prepared to go out and roam the streets for her if she isn’t back by then. He tries to stay awake after that, even turns on the TV in the hopes that whatever late-night programming he can find will help him fight against the pull of sleep, but it’s been a long day. A really long fucking day, and it’s nowhere near done yet, so eventually Ben gives in and turns off the TV, telling himself he’ll just take a twenty-minute nap.

The front door opens just as his alarm goes off two hours later. He blinks and finds Rey locking the door behind her and heading straight for the bedroom, only to pause when she feels his eyes on her.

“Ben?” she asks, squinting in the darkness as she comes closer.

“You’re home,” he murmurs, and reaches out to pull her in as soon as she’s within reach. Rey lets out a little _oh_ as she stumbles into his lap, but makes no move to get away. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispers into the crook of her neck. “I’m so sorry, it’ll never happen again, I promise–”

“Hey,” Rey sighs, locking her arms around his neck and sliding her fingers into his hair. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, baby. I shouldn’t have pushed you–”

Ben shakes his head. “No, no, you only did it because you care, and I… I was a total _asshole_ , I can’t believe–”

Rey pulls back and cups his face, gently guiding him back up. “Look at me. It’s okay, Ben, I promise. I should’ve given you space, and you shouldn’t have raised your voice, but it’s over now. Okay?”

It’s _not_ okay that he’d raised his voice at her, that he’d lashed out at her concern because he doesn’t know how to react to it. But it’s late, and he doesn’t want to argue again, not about something like this, not when Rey is soft and warm and sleepy in his arms. “Okay,” Ben concedes, and leans his forehead against hers. This way he can hear her breathe, can match his inhales and exhales to hers, and they stay like that for a while until she pulls away and gets off his lap.

“Now come on, let’s go to bed. You need to be at work in–” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and frowns at the time. “Ben, you need to be awake in less than four hours! Why didn’t you go to sleep?”

He gets up and takes her hand. “Never go to bed angry, right?” At least that’s what all his friends and the relationship columns say, and he figures they’re probably onto something if only because it’s the exact opposite of what his parents do.

Rey sighs and reaches up for a quick kiss. “I could never stay angry at you for that long,” she mumbles against his lips before leading him to their bedroom. “But let’s not test that, okay?”

At the threshold of their room, Ben takes the hand still wrapped around his and brings it up to press a kiss to her knuckles. “Okay,” he says, wishing he could give her something more concrete, wishing her could promise her _never again_.

But he’s not going to make any promises he can’t keep, not to Rey. He can’t promise that he’ll never mess things up… but he _can_ promise to always fix them, he realizes as Rey disappears into the bathroom.

Ben grabs his phone and adds that to the list of wedding vows he sometimes finds himself drafting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What this was supposed to be: a Rey POV ficlet.  
> What this ended up being: nearly two thousand words of Ben POV.
> 
> I'm actually quite pleased with how Ben's POV turned out because I think this piece wouldn't have made much sense from Rey's perspective, but this probably could've used some trimming. Oops.
> 
> Anyway, only three ficlets left, friends! And I'm gonna try my best to write and post Day 10 by today. Without giving away too much, Ben finally comes to the realization we've all been waiting for. (I just gave away the whole darn thing, didn't I?)
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and I hope you liked it! Please don't hesitate to comment; I love reading your reactions and thoughts!
> 
> And hey, you can also find me on: [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	10. hold me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 10:** a hold me until my panic attack passes kind of love.

> **Ben **❤️❤️❤️** :  
>  **Can you come home please

It’s the middle of the day – just a little after three – and the timing alone trips her up so much it takes Rey a while to notice the missing question mark. Ben never skips proper punctuation. Never.

> **Rey:  
>  **is everything okay??

She pushes around a few sheets of paper while she waits for his reply, reaches for her unfinished soda from lunch as she keeps her eyes glued to her phone. Two minutes later, Rey nearly chokes on her drink.

> **Ben **❤️❤️❤️** :  
>  **I quit.

Rey calls him immediately, her blood thundering in her ears as she tries to make sense of this development. Did he just do it? Why now? Was it Snoke? Of course it was Snoke, the old creep–

“Please come home,” Ben begs her the second he picks up, sounding smaller than she’s ever heard him. There’s an urgency to his words, a breathlessness in his voice that makes her realize–

_Panic attack._

“I’m on my way, baby. Just hang in there, okay? I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

She tells Han a half-truth, something about Ben needing her but not why, not until he’s ready to share it himself, and coughs up the cash for a ride back to the apartment instead of waiting for her usual bus. Twenty minutes later Rey stumbles into their home with no small amount of panic in her own system, unable to so much as properly breathe until she makes her way into their room and finds Ben sprawled out across the bed, suit and tie and all. He’s even got his shoes on, his feet dangling just over the edge of the bed, and Rey’s first instinct is to pull them off and kick off her own shoes before she climbs into bed and settles in next to him.

“Hey.” She rolls over on her side and props her head up with a hand on her cheek, studies the blank look in his eyes as he takes exaggerated breaths. _In, out, in, out…_

Rey watches his throat work, watches the way he opens his mouth only to be met by silence. It takes a while before he turns to her with a quiet _hey_ of his own, but as soon as he does he’s rolling over to meet her and burying his face in her neck while he throws a leg and an arm around her.

“I fucked up,” Ben gasps as she runs one hand through his hair and the other up and down his back. “I fucked up so bad, I wasn’t thinking – _fuck_ , Rey, what have I _done_?”

It takes all her strength to push against him and nudge him onto his back so that she can straddle him and hold his face in her hands. “Hey, look at me. _Look at me_ ,” Rey instructs, tightening her grip on his jaw for a split second. “You didn’t fuck up _anything_ , okay? You did the right thing, baby.”

Ben squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “I fucked up. I fucked up so bad, just like everyone always knew I would.” When he opens his eyes, there’s a renewed glint of panic and fear in them. “Rey, I’ve spent my whole adult life working towards this. I went to school for this. There’s nothing– I have _nothing_ without–”

She shuts him up the only way she can right now, sliding her fingers into his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp as she leans down to kiss his breath away. “That’s not true and you know it,” Rey tells him between kisses. “You have everything you need to start again. You have family and friends who’ll support you. And,” she brushes her nose against his, nudging him until he opens his eyes and looks at her. “And you have me, no matter what. Okay, Ben? You’ll always have me, I promise. We’ll handle this together.”

He stares at her for the longest time as a dozen emotions play out on his face, from awe to terror to insecurity to hope to terror again. By the time his hands reach for her waist he’s settled on insecurity, and no matter how hard she tries she can’t kiss the lost look in his eyes away.

“I had a plan, Rey. A five-year plan, a ten-year plan, a fucking _twenty_ -year plan. I thought I had my whole life planned out, and now… Now it’s all gone because I couldn’t stand to hear that twisted sick little _fuck_ say another word about you and my family.”

Her skin crawls at the thought of Snoke talking about her and Leia and Han, at the thought of him trying to fill Ben’s head with god knows what, but they can talk about that later. For now Rey adjusts herself and pulls him along with her so that she’s propped up against the headboard and Ben has his head on her shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay, Ben,” she soothes him, holding him to the best of her abilities given how much bigger he is. “Plans are… plans are overrated, baby. I thought _I_ had a plan, and now I’m working with your father. And honestly, I’m happier here than I would have been at any of those fancy car companies, doing grunt work and paying my dues, so I’d say it worked out. And it’ll work out for you too, Ben. I know there’s something out there waiting for you, something _worthy_ of you.”

Ben nuzzles the curve of her shoulder. “I just… I don’t know if I can handle starting all over again. I thought I had it all figured out, and now for the first time since I was seventeen I have no fucking idea what I’m doing with my life.”

She lets his words hang in the silence that follows, lets him process his new reality for a while. And then she leans down to press a kiss to his forehead and rest her cheek against his crown. “You’re going to take a break, just for a little while. And then when you’re ready, we’ll figure it out together, okay?”

Outside, it’s starting to rain. Rey can hear the light drizzle hitting the dry leaves just outside their window, hear how Ben’s breathing is slowly going back to normal, hear the way he whispers _together_ into the hollow of her neck.

“Together,” Rey promises, and holds him until the sun goes down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He finally did it, you guys! Ben finally got sick of Snoke’s shit - and all it took was Snoke trash-talking the two most important women in his life. Imagine thinking your crusty old manipulative ass can turn Ben against Rey. Just imagine. What a fucking idiot.
> 
> Only two days left now, and only one more Big Development left now that Ben’s finally quit his job. I’ll save the long and rambling thank-you note for the end, but I just wanted to say a quick thanks for coming along on this not-so-fluffy-after-all ride with me. It’s been great watching this collection take shape and unfold with you guys, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. See you guys tomorrow for the final two pieces!


	11. wipe my tears away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 11:** a wipe my tears away kind of love.

It’s way too bright outside by the time Rey wakes up.

For a moment there she’s so disoriented by the sight of sunlight spilling into their room in November that she fails to realize just how fucked she is. But eventually her eyes drop from the crack between the curtains to land on the digital clock on Ben’s nightstand, and _that_ ’s when she starts freaking out.

Seven minutes past nine. It’s seven minutes past nine, and she’s still tangled up in her sheets instead of dressed and awake and _at work_ the way she’s supposed to be.

“Fuck,” Rey hisses as her frantic attempts to kick off the sheets lead to her falling over the edge with a _thump_. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ –”

“Rey?”

She finally breaks free and peers over the side of the bed to find Ben looking at her with a slight furrow between his brows and an apron tied around his neck.

“Ben! Ben, it’s way past seven, we’re going to be so late–”

He steps into the room with a laugh and helps her up. “Sweetheart, I don’t have anywhere to be anymore, remember? And neither do you, today.”

“But I– your dad– wait.” Realization is slow to dawn upon her until she catches sight of the date tucked away in the top right corner of Ben’s clock. _11/03/19_ grabs her attention and gives her pause, and suddenly the whole thing makes sense.

“Ben, you know I don’t–”

“I know,” he tells her, pulling her into his arms and dropping a kiss on her crown. She wants to tell him that’s cheating, wants to step away from him and demand that he put an end to this before it starts, but it’s too late. “Happy birthday, Rey,” Ben murmurs against her forehead, and he’s so goddamn _gentle_ about it that she gives in with a sigh.

“Baby, I appreciate whatever it is you’ve planned for today but there’s a reason I don’t…” celebrate. Ever. Not once in all the time he and the others have known her, not even when she and Finn first met at the age of sixteen. Funny how it’d taken her two years to tell Finn why her birthday never seemed to roll around but only two months to tell Ben all about the day she’d been abandoned on the steps of a police station with no birth certificate, no documentation, nothing but a tiny scrap of paper bearing three hastily scrawled letters.

Today is the twenty-second anniversary of that day.

Ben steps back and swallows her protests with a kiss. “I got my dad to give you the day off so that you can do whatever you want… whether that’s having a party with all your friends tonight or ignoring everyone so that we can pretend today is just another day. It’s all up to you, Rey.”

She knows that despite her best attempts this past week to communicate just how _not_ into her birthday she is, sweet old Chewie probably brought cake into work today anyway. Rose must have arranged for flowers and a teddy bear to be delivered as always, and Poe will be running around town trying to hunt down the perfect gag gift in the hopes of making her laugh. And Finn… Finn’s birthday wishes are always somehow both the best and the worst, because he’s the only one who can come anywhere close to understanding how she feels but he just can’t seem to get _why_ she still feels this way after all these years, why she’s refusing to let herself heal and rise above her past.

But Chewie’s cake and her friends’ gifts can’t reach her in this apartment where Finn’s sincere wishes and Poe’s bad jokes can easily be silenced by ignoring her phone and the outside world. The heartfelt words, the carefully selected gifts… Ben’s offering to let her put it all on hold until she’s ready and able to handle it with grace. “That… that sounds kinda perfect, actually,” Rey concedes, wrapping her arms around his waist as she buries her face in his neck.

“Okay,” Ben says, one hand coming to rest low on her waist. “Just another day it is, then,” he declares, running his fingers through her hair as she nuzzles his neck. It’s only been two weeks since he walked away from his disaster of a job, but already Rey’s gotten used to waking up with him still fast asleep and curled around her, to having him all to herself.

Since it’s just another day, Ben tells her to go get washed up while he transfers breakfast from the birthday tray he’d carefully put together to their little coffee-slash-dining table. It feels more like a weekend than anything else when they squeeze themselves into the gap between the table and the couch and take their own sweet time enjoying every single breakfast food Ben could find in their kitchen.

After, he hauls her up to the couch and queues up a Pixar marathon, a little rainy day tradition they’d unintentionally formed two years ago. Outside it’s still unseasonably sunny for this time of year, but Ben pulls her close and lets her cuddle into his side anyway, draping one furnace-warm arm around her shoulders.

They spend the afternoon like this until Rey’s stomach rumbles, and even then Ben gives her the option of calling for pizza or waiting for him to go ahead with the special birthday dinner he’d had in mind for her. Her heart feels almost _too_ full when he shows no disappointment at all over her choice of pizza, telling her with a shrug that he’s too hungry to cook anyway.

Later, much later, long after the last Pixar movie and the final slice of pizza, shortly after she let Ben talk her into accepting at least _one_ birthday present, Rey curls into his side and places a kiss on his bare shoulder while his thumb traces a soothing, repetitive pattern over her hip.

“It’s not that I don’t like birthdays,” she murmurs into the night. “Or celebrations, or gifts. I love gifts, I love that you guys care enough to get me something. I love that _you_ care enough to plan this whole day, even if I did kinda ruin it.”

Ben curls one arm around her waist and pulls her closer so that he can brush his lips along her forehead, so that she’s half on top of him. “You didn’t ruin anything, sweetheart. It’s _your_ birthday. You get to decide what you want to do, even if it’s nothing.”

“I love birthdays,” Rey insists. “I really do. I just…”

His thumb grows still. “Just?”

She readjusts her head on Ben’s chest with a sigh, words nearly drowned out by her little sounds of happiness and the rustle of the sheets. “I just don’t like the way I feel on them, that’s all.”

Warm lips linger on her temple as one big hand curves along her hip, effortlessly spanning nearly half of her. All of this Ben does without comment, wordlessly encouraging her to go on, to confide in him.

A shuddery breath pushes past her lips. “Lonely,” Rey finally confesses into the night. “Every year I just feel so _lonely_ , no matter how many people I’m with, no matter how many friends I’m surrounded by. As if deep down I’m still that baby on the steps, still the kid no one wanted, all alone in this world.”

She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until her tears streak across her face to pool between her cheek and Ben’s chest. There’s no great big sob stuck in her throat, no acute sadness in her heart, just… memories and feelings she’s never quite been able to bury completely even as they grow distant and faint.

Ben moves to rest on his side, putting them eye to eye and chest to chest as he gently wipes away her tears, thumbing at the saltwater streaks down her cheeks. When he lets his hand fall away she moves closer and tucks her head under his chin, takes a shaky breath as he wraps his arms around her.

“You’re not alone,” Ben murmurs just as she’s about to close her eyes, and Rey draws back to find his gaze fixed intently upon her. “You don’t ever have to be alone again, Rey. I promise.”

 _You’re not alone anymore,_ Finn had pointed out the first time she told him about her birthday. _We’re not going anywhere,_ Rose and Poe and all the others have repeatedly assured her. But somehow all of it has always felt so temporary, so _fragile_ , as if any day now they’d wake up and come to the same realization that had led her parents to abandon her on those steps.

But the way Ben says it, holding her in his arms in their bed in the _home_ they’ve made together…

 _Together,_ she’d promised him when it felt like his life was falling to pieces.

 _Together,_ he’s proven to her time and time again these past few years.

Rey reaches down, finds the hand curled around her hip and takes it in her own. “Neither do you,” she whispers, giving Ben a small smile as the implications of his promise wash over her.

He meets her halfway, leaning down just as she tilts her head up to kiss him. It’s soft and slow, the both of them tired after a long day of nothing, and when he pulls away it’s only to touch his forehead to hers as he brushes a sweet Eskimo kiss against her nose. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

And for once, it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this for a full day now, so I think it's time to let go and move on to the next piece.
> 
> It feels like more ground should have been covered since this _is_ the penultimate ficlet leading up to the you-know-what, but the last few pieces have been so unexpectedly heavy that I quite like the idea of this one slowing things down and guiding us back into fluff territory. It's a bridge between days 10 and 12, I guess. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself because otherwise I'll never stop trying to fix this.
> 
> Anyway, Day 12 is upon us, friends... so you know what that means! @nancylovesreylo predicted a few chapters back that these idiots wouldn't actually get around to saying it until the last day and now here we are. You know me too well, Nancy!
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment, and I'll see you tomorrow (or later today, I guess) for the final ficlet!
> 
>  **Bonus headcanon:** the one time Ben talked about his nose being too big, Rey shut it down by saying it's perfect for Eskimo kisses. So that's a thing for them now.
> 
> [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	12. i love you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Day 12:** an “I love you” before we say bye kind of love.

The first Monday of November finds Rey brushing imaginary lint off Ben’s lapel. It’s the best she can do, given that she has no idea how one goes about tying a tie and Ben would never ask her to iron his shirt or anything like that.

He indulges her with a smile, stands perfectly still as Rey dusts off his lapel and shoulders before she stands back and assesses him.

“Ten out of ten would hire,” she declares with a satisfied nod and a serious expression that lasts for all of five seconds before her lips curve upwards to match the his smile.

“Well, let’s hope Amilyn feels the same way,” Ben tells her as he turns to get their things from the kitchen counter, handing Rey her backpack before he picks up the messenger bag he hasn’t used in three weeks.

It hadn’t taken long for Ben to hear back from the dozen or so places he’d applied to after leaving First Order, but Rey’s secretly glad he’s setting aside all of those companies in order to accept a request for a meeting from Amilyn Holdo, a close friend of Leia’s and founder of the Raddus Network. It’s a grassroots movement, the complete opposite of FO, and they’re looking for someone who can help them bridge the gap between civil society and the government, someone who can take their suggestions and agenda and present it in a way that is convincing and compelling to big businesses.

Rey has no doubt that Ben will be perfect for the job.

She’s told him so too, at least fifty times since he first decided to go for the interview, but that doesn’t keep him from fidgeting and shaking with nervous energy as they take the elevator down and head for the car.

“Do you have everything?” Rey asks as they get into the car, hoping to distract him more than anything. It works as Ben methodically goes through everything in his messenger bag and runs through his mental checklist, and when he turns to her it’s with a relieved smile.

“Yeah, I’m good. Ready to go?”

Corellia happens to be on the way for him, but Ben probably would have insisted on dropping her off even if it weren’t; they’ve both gotten used to him sending her to work and picking her up these past three weeks, something he’d started doing to maintain a sense of routine and get himself out of the house.

Rey nods, and they’re off. The shop is twenty minutes away, and they spend most of the drive talking about the past weekend: lunch with her friends on Saturday, which they’d graciously not referred to as a belated birthday celebration while she graciously accepted their gifts; their trip to the park yesterday, after Rey decided the only way to keep Ben from overthinking his CV was to drag him out of the house; dinner with his parents in the evening, a rare occurrence that’s slowly growing in frequency now that Snoke is no longer the elephant in the room.

“You know, dad mentioned something to me last night,” Ben announces, turning to her at a red light.

The Solo men had seemed completely silent while they worked on the dishes after dinner, but maybe Han had cornered Ben into a conversation right around the time Leia asked Rey to accompany her out on the porch so that she could ask about Ben.

“What is it?”

Ben turns into Coronet Street. “Thing is, he and Chewie can’t keep doing this forever. I mean, they’ll try to, but eventually they’re going to have to retire.”

She can’t imagine Han and Chewie hanging up their tools for good and stepping away from cars, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that they’re both approaching their sixties. Still, they’ve probably got at least a good decade left in them, and then another year or two as they stubbornly ignore the signs and attempt to keep going anyway.

“Since I’m not taking over the family business and Chewie doesn’t have any kids either, they’ve always figured they’ll just sell Corellia when the time comes,” Ben tells her with an unexpected hint of sadness in his voice; she forgets sometimes that he spent a good chunk of his childhood in the shop, turning it into his personal playground and admiring all the rare supercars people would entrust to Han.

“That’s a little sad,” Rey acknowledges as the car comes to a stop across the street from Corellia. She eyes the weathered sign for a moment and turns to find Ben watching her. “Do they know who they might sell to?”

Ben smiles and turns in his seat to face her. “That’s the thing. They’re hoping they won’t have to sell it after all.”

“But then how…?”

She watches with a frown as Ben reaches for her hand and laces their fingers together. “I’ll let him talk to you about it. But you _are_ happy here, right? Working in Corellia?”

“I love it,” Rey assures him.

“Good. Good, that’s all I needed to know.” Ben lets go of her hand to cup her cheek instead, leans across the console to kiss her until they’re both smiling. “Have a good day at work, sweetheart.”

Rey reaches up for one final peck before she pulls away and grabs her bag from the floor. “I will. Good luck with the interview, baby. You’re going to do great, I know it.”

Ben shrugs. “We’ll see how it goes,” he says modestly, as if Amilyn hasn’t been trying to hire him ever since word got out about him quitting.

“It’s going to go _great_ ,” Rey stresses as she steps out of the car. “Keep me updated, okay? Good luck, love you, bye.”

A hand shoots out to grab her by the wrist and pull her back in before she can close the door, and Rey throws Ben a wide-eyed look as she stumbles back into her seat. “What is it, did you forgot some–”

It’s a little awkward, having him kiss her while she’s half in and half out of the car, but Rey melts into it all the same even as she questions Ben’s urgency.

He pulls back what feels like an eternity later and looks at her as if she hung every single star in the galaxy, and Rey doesn’t understand why but it pulls a burst of happy, airy laughter out of her anyway.

“What is it?”

The smile he gives her is a close cousin of the dopey look she likes to think of as his afterglow face, a dazed grin she usually spies when they’re a mess of tangled limbs trying to catch their breath.

“That’s the first time you’ve said you love me.”

Rey laughs again, this time in disbelief. “What? No, that can’t be–” It can’t, right? She’s known forever now, has been thinking it in her head and sharing it with her friends for months, has been trying to tell him–

Oh.

“Oh,” Rey echoes out loud. “I thought I…” she shakes her head and drops that line of thought to take Ben’s hand instead. “Well, I do. I love you.”

She closes her eyes when Ben leans in to brush his nose against hers, smiles when he can’t quite kiss her because he’s grinning too widely. “I love you too, sweetheart,” he murmurs against her lips, and it feels like the last piece of a puzzle gently sliding into place.

It’s not a revelation, not really. Of course Ben loves her; she’s known it for months, seen it in all the little things he does for her and with her. But it’s nice to hear all the same, a full stop on a run-on sentence that’s overflowing with all the things they can’t quite put into words, a shorthand for everything they feel for each other and all the unspoken promises between them.

Rey hooks her arms around his neck, pulls Ben in for another kiss as they both ignore the loud honks coming from across the street and Han’s repeated calls to _snap out of it, lovebirds!_

This moment has been months, maybe even years, in the making. Han and work and the whole wide world – it can wait, all of it.

For now, she just wants to be with the man she loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that certainly took them long enough.
> 
> I never intended to keep them from saying it for so long, but the more I thought about this story the more it just felt like the right thing to do for both their characters. Coming from a background filled with lies and trickery, Rey knows better than anyone that actions speak louder than words. And growing up in a household where everyone was always in a rush to leave and never quite acknowledged his parting words, Ben eventually learned to stop saying it altogether. It seemed right to me that they’d show their love long before they were ready to acknowledge it, and I hope you agree. Or at the very least, I hope this was worth the wait.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your endless and enthusiastic support and encouragement throughout this journey. It’s been such a joy having you along for the ride, and I truly would not have been able to do this (12 ficlets in 13 days, you guys!) without your constant motivation. So thank you, thank you, thank you. <3
> 
> And as always, please feel free to comment one last time.
> 
> [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


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